For decades, UC and Veterans Affairs medical centers have advanced a shared mission of patient care, research and health professional education. Across seven VA medical centers, UC faculty and trainees help deliver care to veterans while also preparing California’s physician workforce, with more than two-thirds of UC medical students, residents and fellows training in VA settings.
- Veterans get access to specialized academic medicine through the work of thousands of UC faculty and residents who provide expert, team-based care at VA medical centers.
- California’s physician workforce is strengthened through VA medical centers that serve as essential training sites for future doctors, advancing the long-standing UC-VA partnership.
- The UCSF Fresno partnership has supported veterans and trained future doctors since 1975, when the UCSF Fresno medical campus was established.
When Roman Roque, DO, MPH, completed his psychiatry residency at UCSF Fresno in 2024, choosing where to begin his career did not require much deliberation.
As a resident, Roque trained at the Veterans Affairs Central California Health Care System in Fresno, caring for veterans facing complex mental health and substance use challenges. The experience gave him a firsthand view of how academic medicine and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs work together to serve patients while training future physicians.
“The department is a place where it felt like people really cared about you personally and professionally, but also, the work that we do here is making an impact on the community, even as a resident. So, it was easy for me to picture myself being here right after residency,” Roque said.
Training doctors and serving veterans
After graduating, Roque joined the VA Central California Health Care System’s Substance Use Disorders Program as a staff psychiatrist and serves as an assistant clinical professor with the UCSF Fresno Department of Psychiatry.
Roque’s experience reflects the impact of long-standing partnerships between University of California medical schools and VA medical centers across California. These collaborations expand access to specialized care for veterans, strengthen the physician workforce pipeline, and prepare future physicians to serve communities across the state.
- 64 percent (2,285) of UC medical students train at VA medical centers at some point over the course of their four years of medical school.
- 66 percent (4,000) of UC residents and fellows have key clinical training experiences at VA medical centers.
A decades-long partnership to meet veterans’ health care needs
California’s veterans often face some of the nation’s most complex health challenges, from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury to chronic illness, cancer, substance use and housing instability.
For decades, partnerships between U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers and University of California schools of medicine have helped meet those challenges across California by giving veterans access to specialized health care while also training a new generation of health professionals to work in the state.
The health collaborations between UC and VA are especially significant given that California is home to approximately 1.5 million veterans, the largest veteran population in the country.
Seven of the eight VA medical centers in California are affiliated with UC medical schools, which are located at UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Riverside, UC San Diego and UCSF, as well as the UCSF Fresno graduate medical education campus.
Where academic medicine meets veteran care
Deena McRae, M.D., UC Health’s associate vice president for Academic Health Sciences, said the VA-academic medicine partnership gives health professionals firsthand experience caring for medically complex patients in collaborative clinical environments designed around veterans’ needs.
Resident and faculty physicians at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA conduct approximately 3,000 surgical procedures and over 1 million patient visits for more than 80,000 Veterans annually.
As one of the nation's largest physician training systems, the VA supports approximately 10 percent of all graduate medical education trainee positions in the United States.
“I have lived this partnership from every vantage point — as a student, a resident, a clinician, an educator and now as a systemwide leader,” McRae said in prepared remarks for a recent Association of American Medical Colleges Capitol Hill briefing focused on the VA-academic medicine partnership. “The VA and academic medicine are essential to each other’s training, research and service missions.”
A partnership with far-reaching impact
Of the nearly two-thirds of UC medical students, residents and fellows who complete significant portions of their training at VA facilities, many go on to choose careers within the VA system. Research also shows that health care professionals who train at VA medical centers are more likely to work at the VA.
The value of that training extends beyond workforce development. Physicians trained in VA settings gain a deeper understanding of veterans' unique health needs while developing expertise in caring for patients with complex physical, behavioral and social challenges through team-based models of care.
As a result, veterans benefit from a workforce of health care professionals who understand their experiences and are equipped to provide specialized, patient-centered care, while communities across California and the nation benefit from the decades-long VA-academic medicine partnership.
“What began 80 years ago as a post-war response to a physician shortage has grown into one of the most effective and enduring models in American health care. A collaboration that strengthens our future health workforce, expands access to specialized care for those who have served and advances discoveries that protect the health of our nation.”
About UC Health
University of California Health comprises six academic health centers, 21 health professional schools, a Global Health Institute and systemwide services that improve the health of patients and the University’s students, faculty and employees. All of UC’s hospitals are ranked among the best in California and its medical schools and health professional schools are nationally ranked in their respective areas.